Market Scene in Maumere, 1998, sepia ink on paper,
14.2 x 20.5 cm, Flores, Indonesia
Collection of Mr. Djaja Tjandra Kirana, Denpasar, Bali

In smaller, spontaneous watercolours, Bhutanese children with inquisitive faces, workers squatting for a quick meal of noodle soup, and food merchants by the embankment of barges on the Mekong are portrayed as they are, on the spot. In black and white sketches, fishermen with their sturdy legs dark in the heavy shadow of a beach, carry big fish. Potters churn out vessels, grasscutters brandish their scythes, a woman holds a white chicken….All these people, most of them busy at work, show Fee Ming’s predilection, and strong empathy,—not to say admiration, for them. “I paint people because they are there, outside, and what they do is interesting.” Classic artists have provided Fee Ming with useful examples. Senior artists in Bali have nurtured his spirit. But the men, the women and the children of Asia—the brothers of people of Terengganu, have also helped him in his journey as an artist. They have given him the occasion to sharpen his tools, given him themselves, their smiles, their landscapes…and have not left his mind once he was back at home. They too, are his many masters.

Now in his early forties, Fee Ming has recently confessed to some weariness of travel, not because he is tired of it, but because of the overwhelming emotional and mental richness of it all. “One day, I will stop travelling, and paint in Terengganu only. Of course, that will be after I have completed my studies on Indochina. I still feel that I have to continue to travel, to progress as an artist, and to grow as a person.”

Travel, after all, is not only about learning. It has become a faithful companion of the artist’s creative process. Moving on the surface of the earth triggers a motion of the brain, pushing it through circles of thoughts and emotions. Then, there is the spiritual quest of a man’s discovery of himself and of humanity. Fee Ming’s images of Asia are all the more beautiful because they are a visible trail that mirrors another—invisible journey— a mystical journey, an extraordinary personal experience, that is the more valuable because, through the paintings, it can be shared.